


Stacked, Crooked

by afrocurl



Category: X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Historical, Alternate Universe - No Powers, Alternate Universe - Noir, Diary/Journal, Epistolary, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-25
Updated: 2013-05-25
Packaged: 2017-12-12 22:57:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 928
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/817038
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/afrocurl/pseuds/afrocurl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>One new case for Erik Lehnsherr, private detective, sends him all through New York looking for one man, Charles Xavier, war hero and heir. What Erik finds is not what he expected. Not in the least.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Stacked, Crooked

**Author's Note:**

> Written for my noir square in my trope-bingo mini card. Betaed by **ninemoons42**.

14 September, 1945

A polished dame walked into my office this afternoon, acting like she owned all of New York City and a pretty little chunk of land someplace else on top of that. She had a small fox stole across a green dress that was almost indecent for an afternoon; the satin clung to her skin and her heels barely clicked against the floor.

To me, she was trouble.

But as she sat down - without waiting for an invitation - the cool calm facade collapsed. It was like watching a sod home fall. I'd seen those in the thirties.

She said her name was Raven, though that sounded like a lie, and that she was here to have me look for her brother, Charles. He’d returned from France with his unit but never arrived at their home in Salem Center.

I had to wonder if he really had disembarked with his platoon, but I knew enough to save that question for later. Instead, I asked a few more questions about this brother of hers: what he did before the war, where he might have gone that she hadn’t considered, if he wanted to be found at all.

Emphatically, Raven told me that her brother would not abandon the family fortune - his responsibility now - and that he had to have been kidnapped.

She left me to surmise the reason for the kidnapping, but it didn’t take much to put the family fortune into the equation.

Just before we got to the part where we were going to dicker about me taking on her case I told her I'd get started. I couldn't say no to a dame like her, to the real worry in her eyes. No matter what she was wearing or saying she was spooked, and she was desperate, and this was something I could do.

After that, she just stared at me for a moment - and then she fished a $500 bill from her purse for me to start with.

She never mentioned what I'd be getting when I found Charles.

*

18 September, 1945

I went to the Xavier home - mansion really - to see what I might find there before I started to look for Charles in earnest. The home was not really a home so much as a tomb of long-lost relatives. There was no way to avoid a dead Xavier portrait.

The house helped to explain a bit, however. This house - after being on the lines in France - would be hard to come back to. It would be impossible, if I had been in Charles’ shoes.

It felt like days had passed when I finally quit the place, though the clock at the train station told me it had only been hours. Still, I thought I had what I felt might be a good sense of who this Charles Xavier might be. He seemed responsible to a fault, so the fact that he hadn’t arrived back at his home was worrisome.

Someone had to have taken the man, that much I knew. He wouldn’t let down the scores of Xaviers past.

*

23 September, 1945

Instead of looking around the posh areas of New York, I looked towards the docks, towards where I lived: the places no one wanted to go.

There was nothing there, but a few people had heard about him. They all said that he left on a boat that was heading for Miami.

I couldn’t figure out why he wouldn’t fly there, but let it slide. There was still work to do.

*

28 September, 1945

Raven’s not going to like what I’ve found, but I know she needs to know. Messages every day and phone calls every other day on the clock since I took the case.

Charles had skipped town - for good. The signs were all over the city, misleading trails: he left evidence of being kidnapped, of leaving for Miami on a boat, of heading out west.

None were true in the technical sense.

Charles had run off to Mexico. Leaving the family fortune behind and in Raven’s hands.

She’d never prepared for that.

Too bad.

*

31 December, 1945

Raven showed back up today, though this time she looked much more like the proper woman I knew she was. Gone was the slinky green number; in its place was a cool grey wool dress. Pearls around her throat. A proper little hat with a proper little veil. She kept her gloves on to shake my hand.

She’d come to tell me that she was finally starting to settle in as the heir of the Xavier fortune. It had taken some time, she said, for the board of directors to accept her. Truth be told, she had said, it had taken a notarized letter from Charles in Mexico saying that he had given up control to her for anyone to buy anything.

She looked a bit lost in the new clothes and the carefully constructed facade, but it oddly fit.

Just before she left - she had a meeting to attend - she opened her purse to take out her checkbook.

She reminded me that she’d never paid for the rest of my services. I wanted to protest the check, but she insisted.

As she got up to leave, she placed the small piece of paper in my hand. She had written me a check for $10,000.

I sat there, looking the check for a while before Angel could shake me from the stupor.

There was so much more I could do with that money. Or nothing at all.

Possibilities loomed.


End file.
